As a country famous for being sent up by Sacha Baron Cohen's madcap screen creation, Borat, it seems fitting that Kazakhstan's preparations for their World Cup qualifying match against England on Saturday should be overshadowed by chaos and controversy behind the scenes.

Amid all the upheaval, though, there are enough reasons for Fabio Capello, the England manager, to approach with caution a match that his team are expected to win comfortably. The element of surprise can be a potent weapon, not least in international games that pit minnows against so-called heavyweights, and Bernd Storck will have that up his sleeve when he oversees his first match in charge of Kazakhstan at Wembley Stadium.

Defeats away to Croatia (3-0) and at home to Ukraine (3-1) last month - which left the Kazakhstan football federation “ashamed”, according to Sayan Khamitzhanov, its general secretary - spelt the end of Arno Pijpers's reign as coach after three years in charge and if Storck's appointment, albeit on a temporary basis, was intended to shake things up, it has done so. Of the 21 players named in his squad, only four featured in the matches against Croatia and Ukraine. The rest have been dropped.

Ten of the squad are uncapped at senior level and more than half are under 22. Gone are players such as David Loria, the first-choice goalkeeper under Pijpers, and Nurbol Zhumaskaliev, the long-time captain. To all intents and purposes, England will be playing Kazakhstan Under-21.

Kazakhstan supporters claim that Storck, 45, has lost his senses but, privately, the former Borussia Dortmund defender has insisted that there is a method to his perceived madness. He has been the coach of the country's under-21 team and Almaty, the Kazakhstan Premier League club, since July, positions he retains, and believes that the players he has called up are better than those they have replaced.

Storck pointed to a 3-0 victory against Poland Under-21 and the fact that it took a last-minute own goal for Spain to defeat Kazakhstan Under-21 as evidence of the players' potential, even if fans called for the caretaker coach's resignation and the reinstatement of several senior players after watching the national team lose 4-2 to Almaty in a practice match at the weekend.

For all the anger and bewilderment among Kazakhstan's supporters, however, Capello must secretly be cursing Storck's bold move. England will be expected to win easily, but the hours that the Italian and his coaching staff have spent studying footage of Kazakhstan's matches against Croatia and Ukraine have been rendered redundant. Capello will do his best to provide as much information about the new-look visiting side as possible, but the reality is that the England players will know little about their opposition.

Storck was united with his wife and 13-month-old daughter for the first time in two months at Kazakhstan's base in St Albans, Hertfordshire, yesterday. While he has been living in Almaty, a city whose transformation is reflective of the wider regeneration taking place in the country, his family have remained at home in Berlin.

Storck first ventured into coaching with Hertha Berlin 12 years ago after a modest playing career with Bochum and Borussia Dortmund, with whom he won the German Cup in 1989. Although he had not been in charge of a club side in Europe, he was also No2 at Wolfsburg, Partizan Belgrade and Dortmund before joining Almaty.

Storck would consider managing Kazakhstan on a full-time basis, but his initial aim is to get the country back into the top 100 in Fifa's world rankings (they are No131). If that statistic has the effect of lulling England into complacency, someone should remind them that when there is a German in the opposition's dugout, nothing should be taken lightly.